Israel was still grappling with the results of the 1967 war and would continue to do so until peace was finally achieved, the country's president Shimon Peres has said at a ceremony at Jerusalem's Ammunition Hill battle site. "Israel, which saw Jerusalem torn to shreds, will know how to act in order to keep her united, open to all prayers and immune to all methods of terror," Peres said on the 41st anniversary of the Six Day War, during which the Old City and east Jerusalem were captured by Israeli troops.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert, who has advocated ceding Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a final peace treaty, told the gathering: "I believe there is no contradiction between the people of Israel's total allegiance to Jerusalem and its unity and our ambitions to create peace within it." The event began with the lowering of the Israeli flag to half-mast, and the recital of the Kaddish by a bereaved father.
